FG spends 66% of revenue on debt servicing – Sanusi

Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammad Lamido Sanusi, on Wednesday said the Federal Government is spending a whopping 66 per cent of the country revenue on servicing of interest on debts leaving only 34 per cent for capital and recurrent expenditures.

Addressing the second Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit, tagged Kadinvest 2.0, which kicked off Wednesday in Kaduna, the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor said the amount earmarked for debt servicing in the 2017 budget is more than the revenue from non- oil sector added together.

He noted that Nigeria is getting more enmeshed in debt and has reached its borrowing limit leaving nothing to invest.

The Emir said, “Federal Government spends 66 per cent of revenue on interest of debt leaving only 34 per cent of revenue available for capital and recurrent expenditure. In the 2017 budget presented by the President the amount earmarked for debt servicing is in excess of the non- oil revenue.

“The problem with the budget is that it goes for more debts considering that 66 per cent is paid as interest from the nation’s revenue, which means, more debts will be accumulated for the country. As a country and at both state and national level, the model of borrowing has reached its limit. Growth can only come from investment because you cannot continue to borrow unsustainably.

“You have governors who visit China on a month’s tour and eventually return home with MoUs for debts to invest in infrastructures that might not have direct impact on citizens. Borrowing to invest in light trains in regions like Northern Nigeria does not drive the economy but instead encourages them to join the trains to attend weddings or naming ceremony.

“At the end of the day, a nation and a state are only transformed by vision, once the vision is flawed every single thing that follows logically collapses.”

This is a bitter truth. Our leader will never listen to things like this. A sustainable development should able to take care of the present needs without compromising the ability of the future generation from meeting their own need… What a country.